Walter Ramsey founded the Stooges Brass Band in 1996 after seeing the Rebirth Brass Band perform and deciding he wanted to create something that fused their second line energy with the hip-hop and R&B he grew up on. He recruited members from two rival high school marching bands, and the Stooges were born in the streets. For years they held a legendary Thursday night residency at the Hi-Ho Lounge on St. Claude Avenue, and their debut album It’s About Time (2003) — featuring the ward-anthem “Where Ya From?” — documented a band that had found its voice.
Hurricane Katrina scattered the band, but Ramsey kept the Stooges alive, and their return to New Orleans became a story of resilience that mirrors the city’s own. They won the Red Bull Street Kings competition in 2010 — a brass band battle filmed as a documentary — and spent the following years touring Bonnaroo, South by Southwest, the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, and stages across the world, while also serving as US State Department cultural ambassadors on a 2012 tour of Pakistan, where they became the first American band to play in Hyderabad.
